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This chapter develops the account of weakness of will suggested in the preceding chapter by indicating some factors which could prevent dispositional reasons from receiving episodic mental representation. One such factor is a bias towards the perceived (or a bias towards the present, as Derek Parfit calls it), i.e., a tendency to have one’s attention glued to what one currently perceives. Another such factor is derived from David Hume’s principles of association of ideascalled the mechanism of spontaneous induction, which induces one to imagine that the future will be like what one has...

This chapter develops the account of weakness of will suggested in the preceding chapter by indicating some factors which could prevent dispositional reasons from receiving episodic mental representation. One such factor is a bias towards the perceived (or a bias towards the present, as Derek Parfit calls it), i.e., a tendency to have one’s attention glued to what one currently perceives. Another such factor is derived from David Hume’s principles of association of ideascalled the mechanism of spontaneous induction, which induces one to imagine that the future will be like what one has experienced.